Chaotic Light
by Mrtyrant
Summary: (Original Story) Joshua Reese has a secret, a secret that leaves a trail of light and darkness. After leaving the confines of an orphanage, he tries to hide his dark past from his new life, eventually finding a comfortable home, making real friends, but he quickly learns his worst habit is the hardest to break: punishing people he thinks deserve to be punished.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Roots of Evil (1/4)

**Joshua.**

Knock, knock, knock.

"Joshua, it's time to wake up."

I wish she would stop waking me up like that. "Coming."

I slightly open my eye to see if the room isn't too bright. It isn't, which means it's a cloudy day. Good. I slowly stand from my bed and make my way to the bathroom. I use the toilet and then to the mirror.

My name is Joshua Belmont Reese, I am twelve years old. I'm not like the other kids you see, there's something about me that makes me different.

What is it you may ask? I'll tell later, after we spend the day together.

The first thing I do in the morning is take a shower to wake up properly. After I finish in the bathroom, I go back to my room to get dressed.

My room is as unremarkable as it gets. A bed, a closet, a table with a computer, a small tv with a video game on top of it and a little table beside the bed with a lamp on it. The walls are grey with no posters or drawings. Pretty boring room, to be honest.

I'm going generic today: light blue jeans, black and white canvas shoes, a grey t-shirt and a white hoodie.

After putting my generic outfit on, I go downstairs for breakfast.

"Morning Alma," I greet her.

This is Alma. She is a sixty-two years old small, fragile woman with white hair and walks with a cane. She's super nice. Her husband died a year and a half ago and she decided to get herself some company by adopting a child in need.

I'm an orphan you see. I used to live with my mother but she died when I was eight. After that, I had to live in a very beat down Orphanage that I detested. But then some rich scumbag decide that he wanted to buy it, so he paid a bunch of thugs to constantly sabotage the place. I really don't want to describe the things they did because there was a lot of it. But it worked and the Orphanage was sold, so most of the children had to be transported to a different Orphanage.

My case was different though. The headmistress actually was fond of me for some reason, so she suggested me when Alma was looking for a child to adopt. When Alma saw me, the decision was instant.

Talk about misjudgment.

Today's breakfast was eggs and bacon. I eat it all without a second thought. Then I go back upstairs to brush my teeth. After that, I started to do my hair.

I have an emo haircut. Why? I have Heterochromia, my left eye is sapphire blue but my right eye is emerald green. I prefer to cover the right eye with my bangs. Plus, the fact that I have jet black hair makes everyone think I'm a emo.

I'm not.

After finishing my hair. I go back to my room to grab my cellphone and my bag. I check my phone to see if there are any messages.

Just one.

**Lydia: My house or school?**

**Joshua: Your house.**

**Lydia: Fuck...**

After answering, I make my way downstairs and walk to the refrigerator to grab a sandwich before I leave the house.

"Bye Alma."

"Have a good day at school," she says in return.

* * *

I live in a town called Stranding Haven. I can't call it a small town, since it has a considerable size. The town is divided in four areas.

North, is basically the rich and fancy area.

South, is basically a giant ghetto.

West, is where a live. It's basically the middle class area.

East, it leads to the Haven Lake. It's basically a forest with a lake in the middle. The forest is nicknamed the Black Flower Forest. Why the nickname? There were a bunch of murders that occurred in the city by a serial killer that had the trade mark of leaving black roses in the victims. Of course there are no such a things as black roses, but he basically painted normal roses black. Those murders occur in the 1990s and the killer was never caught, he simply vanished.

In my first year here, I decided to learn as much as I could about this town. It's my home now.

I'm thinking about those things out loud while I walk into Lydia's home. It ends when I finally arrive.

Red Tiger Pawnshop

I just go in without a second thought. As I open the door, the bell at the entrance door makes a noise.

"Oh it's you Joshua." "Hi Mrs. Bertrand."

Laura Bertrand is my best friend's mom. She's an attractive woman in her mid-thirties with blond hair, dark brown eyes and a slim figure. But she also looks really wasted. Her eyes are usually dilated when I see her and she always has a runny nose.

"Lydia is upstairs." "Thank you."

Laura works in the front desk of the pawn shop. Apparently, her sister got the job for her here.

I pass through the front desk and walk upstairs. Above the Pawnshop, there's an apartment which is where they live. I just go in like I always do.

The apartment is a complete mess. There's a lot of trash, food packages like pizza boxes and hamburger bags, the sink is filled with dishes and there are clothes on the floor. Not to sound sexist, but this is usually what the house of a man looks like. Not a house that two woman live.

This apartment has a living room and a kitchen with only a small wall separating, a bathroom and two rooms.

Lydia's room was in the final door in a small corridor. I go there and knock. I usually don't knock but once I entered the room while she was naked and she punched me in the nose because of it. She has a strong left jab.

"Almost ready," she says behind the door.

"You texted me twenty minutes ago and you're still not ready?"

She opens the door revealing that she's shirtless and wearing a white bra.

"Can't find my damn hoodie," she says before going back inside to search. She's already wearing her dark blue jeans and black hi tops.

This is Lydia Bertrand. My best friend. She's what you could call a punk tomboy. She has short wavy golden blond hair with blue tips, sea green eyes, a small nose and pouty lips. She's pretty skinny which I used to think it was funny because she eats a lot. Until I found out the actual reason.

I look inside her room and see a small pile of clothes on the bed. The way her room is messed up, I'm surprised she found the rest of her clothes.

"Can't you wear something else?" I decide to ask.

"Like what?"

I go to the bed to check the rest of the clothes to suggest but then I noticed that they were all too small for her.

"Again?"

"What did you expect?"

Lydia's mom doesn't really gives much money for clothes or anything to be honest. "Here." I take off my hoodie and give for her to other hoodie she was looking for was mine as well.

"Thanks." She put it on in seconds, it's baggy on her but she likes it that way. "Let's go."

"Did you eat?" I asked.

"I'll eat at school."

I open my messenger bag and pull the sandwich that I grabbed earlier. She looks at it a bit before finally asking.

"Cheese?" She loves cheese.

"With ham."

The reason Lydia is so skinny is because her mom doesn't really feed he correctly. She grabs the sandwich and eat.

"C'mon we're gonna miss the bus."

* * *

We leave the pawn shop and make our way to the bus stop. The bus always arrives ten minutes late.

Whatever.

Not like Lydia or I were looking forward to being on a fart-smelling bus. I'm not exactly joking, the driver is an obese guy that farts a lot. Which is the main reason why we sit as far back as we can.

I pick up my bag one more time and pull out the math homework and give it to Lydia. "Answer three or four wrong."

It used to happen once a week but now is basically every day. Lydia really sucks at math, so I let her copy my homework.

"You say that every time," she complains.

"Because Mr. Annoying Voice already knows that you suck at math." It's not exactly a secret.

"Fine."

Mr. Annoying Voice is actually our math teacher, an unremarkable guy except for the almost unbearable voice.

"Oh shit," Lydia says while looking up.

I move my head to see what she was looking at. It was just the Thompsan twins entering the bus. Who are they? Well they are what you would call school bullies. It's composed by two losers.

Wendell and Randall Thompsan. They're twins, both of them resembled a weasels. They have dark blond hair and hazel eyes, with average height and big lips. They're both ugly guys.

How do I know them? Well... They are the sort of morons that are constantly pranking people. But their pranks aren't exactly funny.

Their "pranks" usually involves someone getting hurt in some way. Two months ago, they put a firework in a science teacher's garage. The problem with that? It was not a simple firework, it was a really expensive type that you should shoot at the sky. A six year old little girl walked in when the fire work exploded and caused second degree burns in the girl's face. But they weren't punished for it. Why? They're the mayor's nephews, and he couldn't have his family doing stupid shit could they. So he made sure that the police dropped the case. But they were expelled from their private school in the north area and had to be moved to my school. Today is their first day here and I better keep an eye on them.

"Done." Lydia gives my homework back. "Did you do what I said?"

"Question 2, 6, 9 and 10." She'll get at least a C. "Good."

* * *

Finally after a fart smelling ride with two idiotic twins' dumb laughs, we arrived at the school.

The school we go to is absolutely nothing special. Is basically every generic school that you see on a movie or tv show. The only thing that stands out, to be honest, is the statue at the front. A headless statue that appears to be wearing a robe and holding a spear. No one knows whose statues it is or how it lost it's head.

Lydia and I just stand up and walk out of the bus. Today is probably gonna be a boring day. As we walk towards the entrance we see someone approaching on a bicycle. It is our friend Erika.

"Morning," she says to us while locking her bicycle.

"Morning Erika," Lydia speaks in return.

This is Erika Graham. My other best friend. She's what you can call a Carrie White. Meaning? Before Lydia and I showed up she had no friends. Everyone in school picked on her, even professors. She's still a Carrie, but not in the same degree that she was before.

Why?

Let's just say that I... did something very bad to the people that picked on her.

Erika is a ginger girl with red curly hair that reaches her shoulder blades, gray eyes, milky skin with a spray of freckles, she's slightly overweight but not really fat and wears glasses. She's wearing a short sleeved beige dress today.

"Morning Josh."

"Morning Erika." I greeted her with a smile.

* * *

The three of us walki down the hallway in the direction of the classroom.

"Yo, man!" someone calls from behind.

"You two go ahead," I tell the girls before going in the direction of the voice.

"Sup J."

"Sup Terry."

This is my best only guy friend Terrence Higgins. He's black, tall and lanky, has a long face, high forehead, broad nose and dark brown eyes. He has a mini dark brown Afro.

"Can I copy you're homework?" And he also sucks at math.

"Seriously? Fine." I open my bag one more time and hand him the homework. "Answer three or four wrong but make sure that you answer questions 2, 6, 9 and 10 correctly."

"Why?"

"Just do it Terry."

* * *

After Terry copies my homework, we run straight to class to deliver the homework. After Mr. Annoying Voice finishes correcting, he hands us our results.

**L**ydia: C

**Erika: A-**

**T**erry: C+

**Me: A+**

After that it was just another boring math class.

* * *

After we were all done with our daily torture with Mr. Annoying Voice, we all went to Physical education.

Today was normal stuff. In one half of the Classroom, boys play basketball. The other half, girls play volleyball.

Basically our hairy teacher made us all stand in a line to shoot at the ring. The more you land, the more your distance increases. Terry and I are usually the ones that get the most in. During the practice, I keep an eye on Erika since she always either misses the ball when she plays it or falls on the ground. Luckily, Lydia is gonna make sure that she doesn't get picked on in the locker room because of it, which kinda happens a lot.

"My brother showed up yesterday," Terry says from behind me.

"Didn't your grandmother kicked him out?"

"He went back to get his sneakers," he explains to me. "But his face was pretty messed up."

"Like sucker punch messed up or beat down messed up?"

"Beat down."

"Oh shit."

There's a street gang in the south area of the city. The gang is called **Stranding Parasites** or **SP** for short. Terry's brother was hanging out with them and it got to the point where their grandmother kicked him out because of it.

"Dude, I think he's doing some initiation shit or something," Terry explains.

"If he is, there nothing you can do about it," I try to explain.

"C'mon homie."

"Reese, it's your turn," The Teacher calls out my name.

I step forward and toss the ball into the ring without issue.

* * *

After Gym class, Me, Lydia and Terry go to the cafeteria, though Erika stays a little behind in the locker room. Apparently in every gym class, she waits for everyone to leave before she changes clothes. She doesn't know that Lydia told me that.

Today the food is mac and cheese, it doesn't look so good but not bad either. We all sit at a table close to one of the four pillars in the cafeteria. The tables are rounded and It fit six people at least. But for our luck, no one sits at a table with us. Why? Cause we tell them to fuck off if they do. It's not to be a jerk, but we are more of a group of four that don't like people from outside.

"How did you get a C+ an if we both copy his work?" Lydia asks Terry in confusion.

"I answered three wrong like Joshua said," Terry responds.

"And I did four...Fuck." Lydia slaps her forehead in frustration.

"I did tell you two to answer either three or four wrong, you two just chose different numbers."

While Lydia complains, Erika enters the cafeteria. I wave from the table while she's grabbing food. After picking it up, she walks towards us. But while she's walking someone trips her and she falls on the floor, dropping her food. When I look to see who tripped her, I see that it was Randall Thompsan. Everyone starts to laugh at her, Erika just lifts her head and starts to look for her glasses. She can't see without them.

I stand up to go help her, but the other twin Wendell stands up and grabs her glasses from the ground. The asshole just stands there laughing as she keeps looking for her glasses on the floor.

Terry and Lydia look almost as pissed as I am.

"I'll handle it," I tell them.

I pick up a salt shaker that's on the table and pour some into my hand. Then I stand up and make my way to the weasel face twin while he is still laughing. "Hey!" I call him. When he turns around. I toss the salt into his eyes, then I pull down his pants reveling his blue briefs and push him onto the floor. I pick up his plate, doing my best to keep the extra cheese on it from sliding off before I'm ready. With a sneer, I flip the plate upside down. The food lands on top of his head with a splat, running down his face and dripping onto his shoulders. His brother, the one that tripped her stands up and charges at me. All I do is shove him and he trips on the same chair he was sitting on.

Instantly people started to laugh at his underwear. But I don't pay attention to that, I just picked up Erika's glasses and walked towards her. While she's still on the floor looking for them, I kneel and put them on her face and then offer my hand to her.

"Thank you," she says to me.

"Let's sit down."

We both walk to the table and sit down. The Thompsan twins stand up and leave while the rest of the room still laugh at them.

"That was badass," Lydia points out while giving a thumbs up.

"Not really, weasel face was pretty easy to shove."

"I would just sucker punch the fools," Terry adds. "But watching the ugly motherfucker getting his pants pulled down was funny."

* * *

When Lunch was over, we had our last class of the day. It was just Literature class.

Nothing really worth noting about it. Well, except that the teacher eyes focused on something that wasn't the class. Our Literature teacher is a woman in her early thirties named Veronica. She's an attractive woman with black curly hair and light brown eyes and a curvy figure.

The class was pretty weak today, mostly because the teacher was distracted. I wonder what is going on.

After class was over, I decide to find out.

"Hey guys, I have to give a book back to Miss Veronica. Go on without me." I tell everyone, they just nod and go on.

I approach Miss Veronica, who was writing in something that looked like a diary.

"Miss Veronica?"

"Oh, hello Joshua."

I open my bag and deliver the book that I had borrowed from her. "Here's the book I borrowed."

"You already finish it? It's only been two days." I read it in thirty minutes. Didn't like it very much. "Did you understand the meaning?"

"Death is inevitable." To be honest I found everything pretty tedious but I can't say that to her. "Ummm... Are you okay Miss Veronica?"

"That easy to notice?" she asks. "Grown up stuff, don't worry about it." She's having an affair with a man and she feels guilty about it because he has a wife and two daughters. How do I know that? I'll tell later.

"Well, Thanks for the book."

I turn around and leave her sitting at the table.

* * *

Lydia sits outside the school waiting for me. Terry had to go home to help his grandmother. Erika had go home as well.

So we were going to spend the rest of the day together. We decide to go to the Dying Fantasy. A local arcade two blocks from Lydia's home. We spend the next two or three hours playing Street Fighter 3 while listening to several Skillet songs on my phone with the earphones on each ear. First round we play** Ryu vs Alex** while listening to the song **Rise**. Second round we play** Yang Lee vs Yun Lee** while listening to **Hero**. Third round we play **Dudley vs Elena** while listening to** Awake and Alive**.

Lydia wins the second and third rounds.

"You should stick with playing as either** Ryu** or **Ken** cause you suck with the rest," Lydia affirms.

"I always win when I play as them, so I decided to give you an advantage."

"Oh what a gentleman," Lydia mocks me. "But seriously though, let's go one more round and this time use Ken."

"Umm... It's getting kinda of late, Lydia." It's already night.

"Oh c'mon just one more." It almost sounds like begging.

"Ok, one more but then we go."

"Alright."

We play one more round. This time, it was **Ken vs Oro** while listening to** Falling Inside The Black.**

While I play, I wonder what the problem is. It seems like Lydia is avoiding going home. I need to find out what it is.

"My mother got a new boyfriend," she says while we play the game.

Her mother has a very bad taste when it comes to men. I've known Lydia and her mom for a year and she's dated three men during those times. Some junkie with shaggy hair, a bald guy with a steroid problem and a hippie guy with dreads. The Junkie hid cocaine in their house, the bald guy beat her up because of roid rage and the hippie died from food poisoning.

"Who is it this time?"

"Some biker from the Haven's Devils."

**Haven's Devils** is a Motorcycle club from the west area. They participate in a number of legal and illegal activities and businesses in order to make money.

"Are you serious?"

"He came into the pawnshop looking for a knife." She explained to me. "Then he threw some sweet words to my mom. Then He kept coming back until she accepted to go out with him."

"Do you know his name?" "Tommy Laffer."

**YOU WIN.**

I win the game the moment she tells me his name. It's time to go home.

We both leave the arcade soon after and I take her home. The walk is silent which is strange since Lydia is quite the talker. The night is a bit chilly but I was ok, it's better that Lydia keeps my hoodie. I just hope that she doesn't lose this one as well cause I'm tired of lending her clothes. We arrive at the pawnshop pretty quickly.

"See you tomorrow." "Bye."

We do a fist bump before she goes in.

* * *

Alma has three rules.

One: Always be home before 10:00 PM.

Two: If you dirty something, you clean.

Three: If you bring friends over, they either stay in your room or the living room. The rest of the house is off limits.

I still have two hours, so I decided to take care of something before going home.

Ten blocks from my house there's an apartment building. It's five floors apartment, completely white, two trees in the front and no security. I walk through the door without any trouble, there's just a little girl in the stairs but she's busy playing some game on her phone. I walk pass her without being noticed.

The apartment that I'm looking for is on the fifth floor, door number 503.

As I climb the stairs, I hear noises echoing from each floor. On the first floor, a couple fighting and child screaming because of some online game. Second floor, an old lady talking on the phone about her daughter being late. Third floor, a homosexual couple having sex because I can hear two guys moaning at the door closest to the stairs. Fourth floor, a man crying.

After hearing all of those noises, it makes me glad that I don't live here. But finally I get to the fifth floor. It's the third door on the right. I made sure that no one was going to be home today before I came here. I remove a pair of rubber gloves and my lock pick from my bag, I put the gloves on and then use lock pick to open the door. It's a simple lock, so it only takes a minute.

I enter the room, then closing the door behind me. I can't be seen here. There are no cameras around and the girl downstairs didn't see me climb the stairs.

The room looks like a cleaner version of Lydia's apartment with three or four small differences. The painting is more vivid and a lot of family photos: A father, a mother and two daughters. One daughter is eleven and the other is nine.

What am I doing here? I'm going to kill the father. Why?

Two reasons.

First, he's cheating on his wife with my Literature teacher. Second, well... when I came here the other night to spy on him. I came here planning on delivering some photos to his wife. But when I got here, I saw something really disturbing. I saw him touching one of his daughters in a way a father shouldn't touch. The nine year old one. So I decided that he needed to die before he did something worse. Which actually has connection with my teacher, she actually resembles his daughter which is probably why he's fucking her.

Right now, I'm analyzing the room to see how I can kill him. I can see at least five ways to do it. He'll be home in one hour, the wife and girls are in their grandmother's house for the day and will be back tomorrow. I have one hour to set a trap.

Honestly, the first way would be to let the gas lose and blow up the apartment with a fire trap, but that could harm the people living beside or below this apartment. The second would be to hide and wait for him to get home and stab him when I get the chance, but I didn't bring the proper clothes to do this because I didn't think that I would lose so much time playing with Lydia in the arcade. I should have paid attention to the time so that's on me, I just wanted to cheer up Lydia a bit. The third way would be to poison him, but that's not good either because the police would know that it was a murder if they connect with the cheating they might think that it was either the wife or Miss Veronica. Forth would be to make him injure himself, maybe by slipping and hitting his head on something but that would be difficult to do because I can't predict where he will step on it. Fifth would be to do a fire trap but only to start a fire but that's risky because it could cause the explosion either way and he could get away.

I analyze all the possibilities and decide to go for the fourth method. The way I can do that is put something slippery into several strategic positions. One in the kitchen right in front of the counter. One in the bathroom beside the sink and in front of the bathtub. One in the living room on four different parts of the dinner table. In the kitchen I use cooking oil, in the bathroom I wet the floor and toss a bit of shampoo and soap. In the living room I spread some of the girl's toys around, the ones that you can easily trip on. This one is the riskiest method but is the only one I can come up with without proper preparation.

After putting all the traps into place, I hide under his daughter's bed. Why here? Without his daughters around, he won't have a reason to come in the room. The door is open and the room is dark, he won't notice me. The daughter's room is typically girly, filled with dolls and the wall are pink. There are two beds, one is purple and the other in pink. I'm hiding under the purple bed.

_**Click**_.

I hear the front door opening and some steps. He's here. I can see him from under the bed. It's a man in his late thirties wearing a cheap suit. He's a salesman in an office in the north area. How the hell did a guy like this manage to get someone like Miss Veronica to sleep with him is a goddamned mystery. A slight man with brown eyes, an ordinary face with a beard and thinning brown hair with some gray hair at the temples.

I get comfortable a bit while waiting to see if the traps will work, otherwise I'll have to use the third method.

The first thing he does once he gets in is turn on the tv and puts on the news. Then he walks towards the the kitchen, but he passes right through the spot where I put the cooking oil. Shit! He opens the fridge and grabs a beer and gulps it down in seconds. He then pulls out a something and puts on a plate: chicken and potatoes. Probably food that his wife left for him. He picks the plate up and puts the food in a microwave. He then starts to take off his clothes, which isn't exactly a pleasant view. He then walks to the bathroom, probably to take a bath or shower. He opens the door and walks in but slips in the wet floor that I left. But he manages to catch himself in the door before falling.

Fuck! He takes a three minute shower before leaving the bathroom and grabbing the food he put in the microwave. He then starts to walks toward the dinner table. If I'm correct, he will step on the toy I left there in five steps.

_One. Two. Three. Four. FIVE!_

The moment he steps on the one the toy, he trips and falls to the front smashing his head on the corner of the table before falling onto the floor. I can see the blood leaking from his head and onto the floor. He tries to stand up and I see the cut that he made on the fall. He tries to run to the kitchen to probably to try to wash it on the sink or something. But for my luck, the moment he walks towards the kitchen he steps on the spot where I left the cooking oil and slips one more time. He falls and smashes his head on the kitchen counter.

This time, he doesn't stand up.

I get out from under the bed and walk toward him to check. He's passed out and he still bleeding. There are two cuts on his head now, one on the scalp and one on the forehead. The forehead one is not so bad, but the scalp one is quite deep. I am almost certain he hit an artery. I wish I could be sure but its better that I don't touch him. He left a trail of blood from the living room to the kitchen, I make sure not to step on it. As I make my way to the exit.

As soon as I leave the door, I check my phone to see what time is it.

21:25 Pm.

I better get home.

* * *

It takes me less than thirty minutes to arrive at home. I tell Alma that me and Lydia hung out a bit more. I don't like lying to her but…

She made dinner, pepper beef. It was really good. Then I just brushed my teeth and go to bed.

I lay there, checking my phone for messages.

**Lydia: Rematch tomorrow?**

**Joshua: Can we play The King of Fighters instead?**

**Lydia: Only if it's 98**

**Joshua: I wanna play 99**

**Lydia: I thought the machine was broken.**

**Joshua: I saw that fat guy with glasses playing.**

**Lydia: Fine 99 It is.**

**Joshua: I'm going to sleep. Lydia: Good night.**

**Joshua: Night.**

Today was productive day. I wonder what tomorrow will be like. Oh well. Good night


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1: Roots of Evil (2/4 )

**Lydia.**

**THUD**

There's a noise coming from the living but I don't care, it's probably mom fucking around.

**THUD**

Seriously, go to sleep Mom!

**THUD**

What the fuck is that bitch doing now?

I stand up from my bed and walk to the the living room to check. I swear to god, if she's passed out on the floor again, I'm leaving her there. I open my door and walk towards the living room. The moment I get there, I see broken glass on the floor with my mother siting on the ground.

"What the fuck?" I get closer and notice mom sitting on the kitchen chair with a shard of glass in her foot. "Goddamned mom."

"Don't you start!" she says while on the ground. "Just help me."

I get closer, careful not to step on any of the broken glass that's on the floor. "What do you want me to do?" I ask.

"Just, pick up the phone and call you aunt," she tells me.

Goddamned. I obeyed her for some reason and went to pick up the phone, I dial Aunt Genevieve's number. It calls rings five time before she finally picks up.

"Hello?"

"Hi Aunt Genevieve."

"Lydia? Do you know what time is it?"

"Yeah but..." I go to the kitchen and give the phone to mother.

"Genevieve, tell Ron to come here," she tells her. "I need to go to the hospital."

Ron is my aunt's boyfriend.

"No, nothing like that," she says. "I bumped into a vase and cut myself in the broken glass, the shard went deep into my foot," she explains. "I'm gonna need some stitches," she says. "Okay, okay." She turns off the phone and hands it back to me. "Your Aunt Genevieve and Ron are coming here to get me," she tells me. "Grab my jacket for me."

"What hell were you doing anyway?" I asked her. "And where did this vase came from?" "Tommy gave it to me." Of fucking course it was Tommy. "I bumped into it by accident." I look at the kitchen to see figure out how the fuck did this accident happened. I notice something that was not supposed to be there. I walk towards the sink and see a bottle of pills on top of it. This bitch was getting high on something and probably bumped into the vase it because of it. Of course she's fucking high, she doesn't look in pain at all. If the shard was that deep in my foot, I would be screaming.

I pick up the bottle from the sink and read the label. Oxycodone. "Where the fuck did you get Oxy!?" I snapped at her.

"Don't you start Lydia," she replies. "It's Tommy's, he uses for his back pain."

So you decided to use for your 'pain' as well. "Seriously? Back pain. The Asshole's back looked fine when he was taking you from behind the other day." She looks at me with a surprised face. "What? You shouldn't moan so loud."

I leave the bottle there and walk to her room the to grab her jacket. Mom's room is as messy as mine. Her bed is a mess, and I don't wanna know what those stains on it are from. I walk to her closet to get the jacket. But I step on something on the way.

What is this? I lift my foot to take a look.

FUCK! It's a used condom that's on the floor. Gross! I pick up her blanket to get the disgusting thing off my foot. I take back what I said, A shard of glass deep in my foot is much better. Fucking disgusting bitch! I open her fucking closet and get the stupid jacket that is hanging there. It's a blue denim jacket. Before I turn around to go back to her. I notice another jacket. A leather one. It's a man's jacket.

Oh fuck me, if this asshole is leaving his shit here now… It means he could crash here permanently. I swear to god, if the asshole starts to live here, I'm going to live with either Aunt Genevieve or Joshua.

**Knock, Knock, Knock**.

They're here.

I walk back to the living room and toss the jacket to Mom, then I go open the door. "Hey, Lydia." Aunt Genevieve is similar in appearance to mom, she's blond as well butshe has dark blond hair while mother is golden like mine, she normally pulls back into a long braid. She's not as pretty as my mother but she definitely looks healthier. She's the two years younger than mom.

"Sup, Kiddo." Ron is a middle-aged man of average height, with a lean build. He has tan skin, dark blue eyes and black hair. He has a bald spot in the back of his head but I think he doesn't know.

"Hey."

The two entered to check on mom.

* * *

Ron helped Mother to get into his car and the three left for the hospital, leaving me alone in the apartment. I tried to go back to sleep but I couldn't. What would be the point anyway, it's almost time to wake up anyway. So I decided to just watch some TV.

There was just some weather report on TV, saying that today was going to rain. Whatever. I changed the channel trying to find something else to watch but there's hardly anything so I turn off the TV.

I walk back to my room to get my cellphone that was on the charger. I turn it on and pick up my ear phones and put on some music. Anarchy In The U.K by The Sex Pistols. I just lay there while listening to the lyrics and try to understand how my life became so fucked up.

I mean...

First: My dad died.

Second: My mom became a Junkie.

Third... There's no third.

I end up closing my eyes thinking about it.

Me and Mom moved to this town a year ago. According to mom, we needed a change of scenery. My mom was not as fucked up as she is now. She used to have shit self-control before, she drank and smoke more than she should but dad kept her straight. After Dad died however, she just became a self-destructive whore. My Aunt Genevieve invited her to live in an apartment that she owned, by owned she meant she took it from her ex-husband in the divorce but it's the same crap. Before we knew it we were living in Stranding Haven.

The first month here was normal. The second one was the one that things started to get bad. Well, Mom and I went to have lunch in a shitty diner a few miles from the school. The food was good enough, but mom was more annoying than usual. Only looking back that I could I tell that she was high, I don't know exactly what she used that day, but she did use something. I'm pretty sure that she had sex with a bald guy with a beard in the bathroom of the diner that day. But believe it or not, that day had a bright side.

So while I was waiting for my mother to come back from the bathroom. Someone else entered the diner, a boy who was my age. When I saw him for the first time, I thought that he was a total weirdo. I mean, he had a fucking emo hair. For some reason, I decided to invite him to sit down at the table with me. And before I knew it, we were best friends. We liked the same type of stuff, like music, games and a lot of other stuff. He helps me pass in classes since he's a straight A student. But sometimes I'm kind of envious of him. He's just so... Perfect, in a weird way. Everything he does, he excels at it. It's kind of annoying at times. Not to mention that every teacher in the school adores him, the feeling isn't mutual though cause Joshua can't stand them. Well except for Veronica, the literature teacher but it's just because she's hot.

**Beep, Beep, Beep**.

Shit. Time to school.

I stand up from my bed to put my clothes on. Dark blue jeans, black hi tops and Joshua's white hoodie. I wonder if he's going to bring another sandwich today.

**Knock, Knock, Knock**

He's here. I go to the living room to answer the door. I opened and I was right, it's Joshua. He's wearing navy blue jeans, white sneakers and black long sleeve shirt. He has so many clothes and all of them look good on him.

"Ready?" he asks. Joshua always has his hands in his pockets for some reason.

"Yup, let's go." I reply.

Joshua looks inside of my home and notices something. "Is that blood?" he asks.

"My mom stepped on a piece of glass and my aunt took her to the hospital to make get stitches," I explained quickly.

"How did that happen?" he asks.

"She was high on Oxy," I tell him. "Can we go?" The less we stay here, the better.

"Ok."

* * *

We leave my apartment as soon as he arrives and go to get the stinky bus. We sit beside each other listening to music, we do that when there's no homework for me to copy. We usually listen to either his phone or mine. Today was mine, we were listening to **Animal I Have Become** by **Three Days Grace** while we waited for the bus ride to end.

But I notice the ugly twins or weasel twins as Joshua likes to call them, entering the bus. The ugly losers glare at Joshua, probably still pissed about him humiliating their asses in the School cafeteria. They shouldn't have messed with Erika then, fucking losers.

I look at Joshua a bit and notice that he's looking at the window. He has this intense look on his eyes when he's thinking about something. I wonder what it is.

* * *

It took a little longer than usual for us to arrive at the school. Not that neither of us minded.

Erika was waiting for us in the entrance like she always does. It's kind of annoying, not that I don't like her but, she waits for us because she's afraid of entering alone. It's been like this ever since we became friends.

"Hi," Erika says with a smile. Erika is a bit of a dorky looking girl. She's wearing a gray sweeter and black skirt with low-top shoes.

"Hey," Joshua says smiling back.

"Sup," I say giving a thumbs up.

We all entered the main door in order to go to the first class.

"YO!" The three of us turn around to see Terry. Wearing cargo shorts, red basketball sneakers and a white t-shirt with his name on it.

I really don't know how Terry became friends with us. Apparently he and Joshua had a fight and became friends afterword. How the fuck does that work I have no idea.

Joshua fist bumps him.

I give him a high five.

Erika just shakes his hand.

* * *

After we all meet up, we go straight to geography class. It was as boring as usual. Terry basically dozes off a bit, Erika takes several notes and Joshua was seeing watches something on his phone. I just sit my ass down waiting for this torture to be over with.

I wonder if mom got the stitches she needed. Part for me is hoping that the stitches hurt but the Oxy probably won't let it. She's probably at home siting on her ass smoking right now. Whatever.

The boredom is killing me right now. I move my head a bit to see, what's Joshua is seeing on his phone. He's reading some news report. The report is about some guy that was found by his wife and daughters in his apartment, bleeding to death from a head injury. The cause was because he tripped on a toy and smashed his head on the dining table, and when he tried to wash himself he slipped in kitchen oil and smashed his head on the kitchen counter.

Shit, talk about unlucky. He was taken to the hospital as soon as he was found but died a day later.

Fuck... It reminds me of my dad a bit.

* * *

After the torture is over, we all started to march towards the next session of torture, but when we arrived at the door for English class. There is a sign on the door saying,

**_Class Canceled_**.

Fucking Jackpot. "What happened?" Erika asks.

"Ms. Badulata's husband is cheating on her," Joshua responds.

"How the fuck do you know that?" Terry asks him.

"I saw her husband coming out of a motel with a prostitute the other day," Joshua tells them. "So I took a photo of them and sent it to her this morning."

"What?"

"The fuck?!"

"Seriously?"

Me, Terry and Erika are shocked by what he just said. "Why the fuck would you do that?" I ask him.

"She deserved to know." He quickly answers it. "And I chose to do it today because it was her class day."

"But... That's cruel," Erika says.

"You think it's better for her to be clueless about her husband's infidelity?" Joshua asks. "No...But..." Erika tries to speak but she quickly stops."

I can't really judge. If someone cheated on me, I'd like to know too. "You did the right thing." I say.

"Yeah." Terry says as well. "But, what are we gonna do until lunch?"

"Let's sit outside and wait," Joshua says.

Joshua signals us to follow him. We all just walked pass the other students when…

**Splash**

But as soon as we passed them all. Out of nowhere, someone throws a water balloon at Joshua. He barely flinches when the Balloon hits him, he just turns his head around to see who have done did it. As he turns, he notices that the ugly twins are laughing.

But they were the only ones. They kept laughing like morons. The idiots didn't even noticed Joshua approaching them. As Joshua got close, one of the weasels decides to make the situation worse by talking.

"What? You looked like you needed a shower." The weasel fuck says while laughing, Joshua just stands there looking at his ugly face. "What? You got lucky back at the cafeteria, if you think I'm scared o-" The weasel should have shut the fuck up. He was the same one that tripped Erika in the cafeteria.

Joshua throws an uppercut into his jaw, knocking him out instantly. The other weasel tries to charge at him, but Terry quickly steps in and grabs him. Terry puts him in a

headlock. I only noticed now that Terry's shirt, shorts and shoes are also wet. The Weasel twin is pretty screwed cause Terry loves that basketball stuff as much as he does his grandmother, especially the shoes.

While in the headlock, Terry starts to punch his stomach. It looks painful but the asshole deserves it. "Ugly motherfucker, you wet my shoes asshole." He finally finishes the headlock by tossing him onto the floor.

That's gotta hurt.

* * *

Soon after Terry finishes off the blue underwear twin , the principal shows up and takes all four to his office. Couldn't the asshole have shown up before they beat up the Weasel fucks, why did he come in the exact moment that Terry finished beating his ass.

Erika and I had to go to the cafeteria without them. Everyone around is talking about how Joshua and Terry beat the shit out of the annoying twins.

"You think they gonna be okay?" Erika asks me.

"Don't worry, Joshua is the school's golden boy," I tell her. "He won't get into trouble."

"Okay."

We started to eat the food on our plate. Today it is chicken with rice. I didn't eat breakfast, so I devour it.

"Why are those two so mean?" Erika asks while I eat.

"They were born with the silver spoons in their mouths." I quickly answered. "Basically, if they do something bad. Someone in their family just comes and helps them out of the situation without punishment."

I've only been living here a year but I know about the Thompsan family. Apparently they're some type of mafia or crime family, some shit like that. The fact that the mayor is a member of that family, is kind of unsettling.

"I... like it... watching Joshua punch him." Erika says. She's definitely still piss off about them tripping her the other day.

Erika has had a crush on Joshua since the day she met him. It's kind of obvious to me. If Joshua knows it or not, I have no idea.

"Yeah, watching him uppercut that asshole was fun."

* * *

Erika and I keep talking about Joshua and Terry beating up the twins until lunch is over. We make our way to the last class of the day: History class.

Luckily for us, Joshua and Terry come back from the principal's officer and sit close to us. "How was it?" I asked.

"Lame lectures and a talk about violence not being the answer." Joshua answers. "Though he did yelled more at the twins than us."

"That's good." Erika says.

Before we could say anything else. The teacher enters the classroom. "Alright class, let's continue where we left off."

* * *

History class passes quickly.

Afterwards, the four of us decided to go play one of my favorite games. I asked everyone to follow me into an abandoned house, not too far away from the school. There's a concrete fence covering the place back of the house.

"What is this place?" Erika asks.

"Some abandoned house." I answered.

"Why are we here?" Erika asks. She's a little spooked.

"You'll see," I say to her.

"How do we get in?" Erika asks.

"Come on." Joshua says.

Joshua then runs towards the fence and does a wall run on the wall and climbs it with no difficulty.

"Why can't we go through the front?" Erika asks.

"Cause someone is going to see us and they could call the police," I explained to her. "We won't have this problem if we go through the back."

Terry goes to the wall and puts his hand together. "Come on."

Erika approaches, still not looking sure about this. She puts her feet on Terry's hand and he helps her climb, Joshua then extends his hand for her and pulls her to the top of the fence. Then I approached and also put my foot on Terry's hand and Joshua helps me climb. Terry then jumps and Joshua grabs his hand and helps him climb.

Joshua then jumps down and rolls on the ground. Terry follows behind him, he jumps down but lands on his feet as oppose to rolling. I myself grab on the ledge and then let go to get down.

Erika on the other hand just stays there, not knowing how to get down. The three of us just waited a bit until Joshua approaches her.

"Come on, jump," Joshua says. "Don't worry, I'll catch you," he says while extending his hands.

Erika is very reluctant at first but then she takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and jumps. Luckily Joshua keeps his promise and catches her but she falls right on top of him. She opens her eyes and realizes that she fell on top of him, she quickly gets off of him and started to apologizes like crazy.

"Sorry! So sorry, I didn't..." Erika apologizes in an almost desperate tone.

Joshua on the other hand just started to laughs. "Hahahaha." His was a kind of sweet laugh, he doesn't do that often. "I guess I overestimated my strength," he jokes about it.

Erika just looks down while still on her knees beside him and says. "Or you overestimated how fat I was."

She's pretty insecure about her weight. She's not really fat though.

Joshua just laughs a bit more before making an evil look. "You promised that you wouldn't talk like that anymore."

Erika constantly puts herself down, so me and Joshua forced her to stop with the self- loathing comments.

"Sorry," she apologizes.

"Sorry is not good enough, you need a punishment," Joshua replies it. "Punishment?" Erika says in fear.

Joshua lifts his hands and start to move his fingers in a very weird motion. Then out of nowhere, he starts to tickle Erika.

"HAHAAHA! HAHAGHAHA." She laughs like crazy as Joshua puts his fingers on her. "No! Stop it! HAHAHAHAHAHAH."

I look at Terry who is chuckling at the situation a bit.

Me on the other hand, I actually approached the two and help Joshua tickle her.

"No! Not you too! HAHAHAHHAH." Erika says in frustration. "Stop! Please! I can't take it anymore!

With that, we both stop the tickling. She's panting a bit to recover air. Joshua and I are still laughing at her a bit.

Joshua then gets closer and gives her a kiss on the cheek and Erika's face becomes almost as red as her hair. "No more negative talk, ok?"

"Ok," she quickly answers.

The three of us stand up and decide to finally get inside the house.

* * *

"What a shit hole," Terry says.

While the house was pretty on the outside, on the inside it was a complete shit hole. Broken planks, dirt everywhere, furniture covered in dust. Though it was probably pretty when people used to live here.

"What are we doing here?" Erika asks.

"Playing a game of trash everything." I tell her. "What?" she asks in confusion.

Joshua quickly grabs a chair that was in the middle of the living room and tosses it on an old TV that was there.

"AGHH!" It scares Erika a bit.

Terry was surprised but quickly joins him by breaking several vases that were covered in dust into the wall like they were balls.

"We shouldn't do that," Erika tries to argue.

"Who cares? No one lives here anyways." I tell her before joining the boys.

* * *

For the next hour. Me, Joshua and Terry break everything we can find in that house. We break everything in the living room, kitchen, rooms and a bathroom. It's a decent sized house, so it took some work. We all ended up pretty sweaty because of it. Well, all of us minus Erika who was too afraid to break anything.

It's not the first time Joshua and I played this game. But it is the first time we invite Terry and Erika to it. It looks like Terry will be on board for the next time but Erika not so much. She just stood there watching us.

"Ready to go?" Joshua asks us.

"Yeah, man this was awesome!" Terry says. "You two better call me for the next time." "Oh, I needed that." After the shit with my mother this morning.

Erika looks down embarrassed a bit. "What is it Erika." Joshua asks her. "I... I have to pee," Erika says shyly.

"There's a bathroom upstairs that we didn't break, come on." I signal her to follow me.

Erika and I climb upstairs for the bathroom on the second floor. Erika is trying not to step into something that they trashed early. Terry was the one that trashed upstairs and I gotta admit, he has some pretty sick destruction skills.

We arrived at the bathroom. "Go in, I'll wait here." She just nods and enters the bathroom. I stand there for a few minutes.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHH!" A scream comes out of the bathroom and I open the door quickly to see what was going on. When I opened, I noticed that the floor was wet. But it wasn't water on the floor. Erika is paralyzed on the spot staring at the bathtub. I get closer to see what has scared her and...

"Hey! You girls okay?" Joshua and Terry quickly come upstairs and entered the bathroom. "Wha-" They look at the tub. "What is this?" Joshua asks in confusion.

There are a bunch of dead animals in the bathtub. Four dogs and five cats. All of them were cut open.

"Wha...wHAT...wWH," Erika babbles as she was stares at the tub. She peed herself.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Terry says as he covers his nose because of the smell.

Joshua on the other hand, gets close to check the animals. "What the fuck?" Joshua says.

"What?" I asked while still in shock.

"They all have collars," Joshua tells me.

"Wait. Are you saying that they were all domestic?" Terry asks.

"I think so," Joshua says. "I think they were all pets."

"What kind of fucking asshole would kill someone's pet?" I asked in frustration. I had a dog who was hit by a car and this makes me very angry.

Behind all of us, Erika starts to cry. Joshua quickly moves in for a hug, she accepts quickly and puts her head on his shoulders. Her tears start to wet his shirt.

"Let's get out of here," Joshua tells us.

* * *

As soon as we leave the house, Terry goes straight home. Me and Joshua take Erika home, or at least until her neighborhood because she insisted on walking home alone.

Joshua and I are walking towards my apartment. "What the fuck!" I say in frustration. "What kind of sick fucker would kill a bunch animals, domestic animals?" I keep talking and Joshua is quiet. "Seriously what the fuck!"

"One of the cats was recent," he interrupts me."

"What?" I asked. "How do you know?"

"The rest of the animals were either decomposing or starting to. But one of the cats was recent," Joshua explains.

"Shit! You mean that the asshole is killing and taking them to that house?" I asked him. "I don't know, but he will probably go back there," Joshua tells me. "But he won't stay long since we trashed the place." "Fuck!"

I was frustrated, I love animals, especially dogs and watching those poor things getting killed like that reminds me too much of my dog.

"But I'll keep an eye on the house, if he shows up, I'll catch him," Joshua says. "How do you plan on doing that?"

He grabs his phone from his pocket and shows me the house.

"What the fuck? You left a camera there?"

"Yup."

"You're unbelievable." How the fuck does he do that? He's always prepared for everything. After a small walk, we arrive at my home, but I noticed something bad. A motorcycle in the front. The asshole is here. Shit!

"A Harley Davidson," Joshua says as he looks at the bike. The bike was a black Harley Davidson. "You want me to go in with you?" Joshua asks.

"Can you, just wait downstairs a bit?" I asked him. "I'll signal to you if something is wrong."

Joshua just nods his head.

* * *

Joshua and I entered the pawnshop and Joshua stays downstairs as I climbed the stairs. I don't hear any sound coming from the apartment, which probably means that they aren't fucking. Which is good.

I open the door and leave it a bit open for Joshua for in case of something goes wrong. I can't be too careful cause, mom's boyfriends have a tendency of being douches from time to time.

As I enter, I noticed the shower is turned on and I really don't wanna know what is going on in there. But then I noticed mom sitting down on the couch watching TV. I approached her to check how she is doing.

"Hey, mom." I take a good look at her and notice her foot is bandaged.

"Hey, Lydia." I can see some mullets beside the couch. "I had to get fifteen stitches." She says while pointing at her foot.

Nobody told you to get high on painkillers, now suck it up. "Damn."

While we were talking, the bathroom door opens it, revealing the last person I wanted to see today. Tommy fucking Laffer. The new one on my mom's list of assholes. He's a somewhat tall guy with a muscular build with a very square jaw. He has light brown hair and gray eyes. His hair is short and messy and he has a goatee.

"Tommy brought dinner," she says to me as the asshole comes out of the bathroom.

Fuck, it means he's going to sleep here today. I turn around and walk to the kitchen to get a glass of water, tonight is gonna suck balls. I gotta tell Joshua to go home. As I keep searching for a glass, I noticed some strange bag beside the sink. It is a white powder, and I'm pretty sure that it isn't dust.

While I was checking the bag, someone grabs my arm in a very tight grip, takes the bag out of my hand and pushes me into the freezer and puts his other hand onto my mouth to cover it. It was Tommy.

He doesn't say anything. "Shhhhhh." He just hushes me. But then he starts to grip my arm really hard, and puts his thumb up and passes it across his neck.

What he's trying to say is, Shut the fuck up or I'll kill you or something like that. He lets go of me and puts the bag in his pocket. Then he turns around and walks back to the living room.

I, on the other hand, am paralyzed on the spot. No way I'm sleeping in the same place as him.

I quickly make my way towards the door and opens it. "Where are you going?" the stupid bitch asks me.

"I'm sleeping at Joshua today!" I say as I pass through the door ignoring her calls. As I go downstairs I see Joshua there. "What happened?"

"C'mon." I walk past him as fast as I can and walk outside of the pawnshop. I don't really know where Joshua lives but I wanna get away from there.

"Lydia, wait," Joshua says as he tries to catch up to me. "Hey!" He finally does. "What's wrong?" He puts his hands on my shoulders. I don't know why but I start to cry out of nowhere. "Hey, what happened in there?" He asks as he wraps his arms around me. It feels good and comforting.

We stay like that for a minute or two until I am finally able to speak. "Can I sleep at your house tonight?"

"Yes."

* * *

After we he said I could sleep at his house, he shows me the way there. He knows where I live but he's never taken me to his home. I always assumed that it was because it was shit but it's actually a really nice looking house. It's all painted white, with a really nice garden out the front. We quickly go towards the entrance, a nice white door at the front. He opens it with his key.

To my surprise, the inside is just as pretty. It is very well decorated with paintings, vivid colors on the wall and really nice furniture.

"This is your house?" I asked him. "Yup."

"It's so... nice." It's so warm and comfy in here. Why can't I live in a place like this? I look around and notice some photos of him and some old lady. Must be his grandmother. "Are we alone in here?"

"Yeah, Alma went to visit her sister," he tells me. He calls his grandmother by her name. "She'll be back tomorrow noon," he explains. "Why don't you go take a shower while I get something for us to eat," he tells me. "The bathroom is upstairs, the door in the middle."

I simply nod in response and climb the stairs. Upstairs is just as nice as downstairs, with some vases and photos. I walk towards the door in the middle and enter it. Not surprising, it is as clean as the rest of the house.

I take off my clothes and quickly jump into the shower. The water is nice and warm, it's perfect here. In my home the fucking shower only has cold water. I wash my hair with some of the shampoo I found. If it makes my hair look as good as Joshua's then bring it on.

**Knock, Knock**

I hear a knock on the door. "Hey, Lydia," Joshua says from the other side. "I took got some clothes that might fit you," he says.

"Leave in front of the door," I say while washing my hair.

"Ok."

As soon as he walks away, I finish washing up, I dry myself with one of the towels. It's funny because in my house the towel is always wet. After I'm done, I open the door to see the clothes. It's a white t-shirt and black sweat pants. I quickly put then on, a little baggy but that's okay.

After I finished dressing, up I go downstairs. Joshua is sitting down waiting for me. There is a plate with food on the dining table. I just sit and quickly start to eat.

The taste is fantastic! "What is this?"

"Chicken curry," he tells me. "She left it for me in the fridge but I ate a sandwich." As much as I feel bad for eating his dinner, I just can't stop myself. It's too good.

* * *

After I finished my food, Joshua shows me his room. It is ten times better than mine for sure. It has a computer, a TV and the bed is bigger than mine.

"You can sleep in my bed today, I'll sleep on the floor." A normal girl would have refused but... that bed just look too good. I quickly lay on it and it is comfy as hell.

Joshua then picks up his phone to look at something. "What are you looking at?"

"The camera."

I quickly stand up to look at his phone. It was an image of the home and he was checking if there was any sign of the pet killer.

"No sign of him," he tells me.

I lay in the bed again. "How many more cameras do you have?" I was curious to know.

He lays beside me and puts on the phone another camera shot. It was a room. "Whose room is this?" Soon after I asked. Our literature teacher enters through the door. Holy shit, he put a camera in her room. I keep watching her covered in a towel while she brushes her hair. But then she takes off the towel and reveals her naked body.

"She's hot as hell." Joshua knows that I like girls, this is why he was showing me that. I'm looking at her tits while she's putting on some lingerie. "Is that only hidden camera put? To spy on someone I mean."

"No."

"Can I see the rest?"

"Sure."

For the next minutes, he shows me several other cameras that he hidden.

One was from our English teacher. We see her and her husband arguing about his cheating. Watching the fool beg for forgiveness is hilarious.

Another camera shows a girl that lives at the end of the street. She's talking with her boyfriend in her room who's begging her for oral sex. "I bet five bucks that she's going to do it," I say to Joshua.

"Sorry, no bet. It's obvious that she will."

Both of us were right. She unzips his pants and starts to suck him up, the face that the guy is doing is pretty hilarious. The girl on the other hand didn't look like she was enjoying it all. She actually looks like she was going to puke. Unfortunately for her, the asshole cums in her mouth and holds her head for her to swallow. She coughs and pukes soon after. "Motherfucker!" I say in anger.

Joshua changes to another camera. This one shows a brunette in the shower. This one was prettier than the previous girl but not as hot as Miss Veronica. "She has bush downstairs," I say to Joshua.

"Yup."

I found out that I liked girls when I was ten when I had my first kiss with a neighbor. I liked the kiss, but she didn't. But I kinda became a bit of a pervert because of Joshua. Once, we went to a swimming class with girls that were a few years older than us. We ended up entering the locker room, for a reason that I can't remember. But when the girls practice ended and the girls came back. I had to hide Joshua there and pretend that I was for a swimmer from the class before them and pretended that I came back to get something I forgot. But then the girls started to undress and I couldn't stop looking at them. Joshua from his hidden spot was looking as well, I had to shield the place where he was so no one would notice him.

After we spent a few more minutes looking at the brunette taking a shower. Joshua turns off the phone but he doesn't get off the bed.

"Are you going to sleep here?" I asked him.

"I want to, problems?"

"Not really, the bed is big enough."

"Good night then."

He wraps himself with the blanket and turns his back to me. I decide to do the same and just go to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 1: Roots of Evil (3/4 )

** Erika:**

"Meow."

I hear my cat meowing, waking me up from my sleep. She's on top of me, a white Persian cat.

"Good morning Ava." She always wakes me up at in my room.

I reach out to get my glasses because I can't see a thing without them. then I get up from my bed to prepare myself for a new day. I take a small look at my room, it's pink with a lot of stuffed animals. I get up and the first thing I do is make the bed. I try to keep my room as clean as possible. The second thing is go to the bathroom and take a shower and afterwords put on some clothes for school. I put on a blue short sleeve dress with pockets.

"How do I look?" I ask Ava.

"Meow." I assume that she's complimenting me.

Suddenly, I heard someone whistle to me. I turned around and to look at the window in my room. My window is right in front of the window of my neighbor's room.

He's standing there looking at me.

"You look like shit, four eyes," he says while giving me his middle finger.

His name is Travis. He's been my neighbor since forever. Travis has fair skin, chestnut brown hair in a messy haircut and large and expressive blue eyes. As much as I hate to admit, he's somewhat handsome but definitely not as handsome as Joshua.

I close my window and the curtains to ignore him. He is always a jerk. Always calling me names, insulting me or doing some pranks to me. Travis goes to school at the north side, which his parents can barely afford. Good, because otherwise he'll go to my school. Though I have to admit, I wouldn't mind if Joshua hit him for being mean to me.

I turn around and leave my room to go downstairs. My Father and I live in a duplex apartment in the lower part of the west area of Stranding Haven, it's a two street separation of the south area. It's not bad, but I can't say that it is good either. There are two rooms upstairs, one is mine, and the other is my father's. I open the door of his room slightly to wake him up, he's snoring like he always does. He slept with his clothes on again. I get close to him and shake him up a bit. "Daddy? Daddy, Wake up."

He opens his eyes a bit. "It's already morning?" He speaks with an annoyance in his voice. He probably slept late again.

My dad is a ginger with a noticeable receding hairline and a really nice mustache, he's a big man with broad shoulders, but he's fat but not too much, with milky skin and wears glasses just like me.

He lifts himself from the bed and gives me a kiss in the forehead. "Good morning Sweetie."

"Morning," I say in return. "Want Breakfast?"

"That would be good," he says to me.

I turn around and leave his room to go downstairs, walking straight to the kitchen to make some breakfast: scrambled eggs with bacon, dad's second favorite breakfast. I get it done pretty quickly and put it on the table.

It's a shame that I can't smell it. I was born with something called Congenital Anosmia, which means that I don't have a sense of smell. It sucks. Once I went to school smelling really bad and I only noticed when someone told me. Since then I've been really careful with it.

"It smells great," Dad says as he descends the stairs.

"I wouldn't know remember," I answered while pointing at my nose.

"I know but it's smells great." He scratches the back of his head before sitting down on the table.

"Are you coming home late today?" I asked him. My father is a police detective and he usually gets home late.

"I don't know sweetie," he answers.

We both stopped talking and eat breakfast, he eats more than me as usual.

* * *

After Dad and I are done with breakfast, we both get ready to leave. He enters his car, which is a **1987 Cadillac Brougham**, while I climbed on my bicycle.

"Have a good day at school sweetie," Dad says to me.

"Have a good day at work, daddy." I say in return before riding away on my bike.

Usually our days aren't very good. Daddy usually works too much and I get bullied someway by someone. But then my knight in shining armor comes to save me like always. I usually blush when I call Joshua that. But he does looks like a knight from a fairy tale, well minus his hair.

I ride my bike in the direction of the school. My neighborhood isn't really the best but it can't be worse than the ones from the south area. It's a little dirty and the people aren't very nice either but it could be worse. Terry has told Joshua, Lydia and me so many bad stories about it that I can't really complain.

* * *

The ride to school is peaceful and quick, just like I liked. I lock my bicycle near the entrance and waited there for Joshua, Lydia and Terry to arrive. I usually do that when I arrive too early in the school. I don't really like entering by myself.

Before I met Joshua and Lydia, everyone used to bully me. It usually varied, from calling me names to hurting me. Some of it were things like someone putting dead bugs on my locker, putting thumbtacks on my seat, sticking my bike wheels, and the list went on.

The school bus arrives a little late than it should and I get a bit scared when Joshua and Lydia don't come out of it. I take my phone from my bag and send a message to Joshua.

**Erika: Where are you guys?**

**Joshua: We're not going to school today. I get a little worried after reading that. Erika: Why? Something happened?**

**Joshua: Lydia's mother ripped the stitches that were on her foot and she went with her to the hospital.**

**Joshua: Terry ain't going to school today either, there was a shootout on his street and it's too dangerous for him to leave.**

**Shootout? Jesus. And I hope Lydia's mom is okay. But... Wait. Erika: Why aren't you coming today?**

**Joshua: Can I come to your house later?**

That takes me by surprise. Why would he wanna come to my house? He never did it before.

**Erika: Why?**

**Joshua: I guess that's a no then.**

**Erika: No, I mean, Yes, I mean, you don't even know where I live.**

Out of nowhere, he sends me a photo of my house. Which shocks me.

**Joshua: That's your house isn't it?**

**Erika: How did you know?**

**Joshua: I passed through that neighborhood and I saw your bike there. Oh, that makes sense.**

**Erika: Why did you take a photo?**

**Joshua: I'll tell you later, I have to go now. Good luck. After that, I put my phone in my pocket. **

**Ring,Ring,Ring**

I heard the bell ringing. Today will definitely not be a good day.

* * *

First class didn't start out well for me. First, the Thompsan twins picked on me the entire class, as soon as I get in the classroom without Joshua or Terry, they started to laugh.

They throw spit balls at me the whole class and threw soda on my bag. Luckily, my phone wasn't there. Even the teacher lectured me for not paying attention in the classes because I was trying to salvage the items that were on. I could have told him what they did but it would be no use. The teachers didn't like me very much for some reason. They all liked Joshua though, if he was here they would listen to him. Actually, if he was here those ugly twins wouldn't have courage to mess with me. Joshua, what are you doing right now?

Second class wasn't any better. Today was history which the teacher did came today. I still can't believe that Joshua took a picture of her husband cheating. Not that he wasn't wrong, it was cruel but cheating on a spouse isn't right. The class is harder than usual because she is making up for the class that she didn't come to.

Then Lunch came. Honestly, going there alone is definitely not a good idea. So I decided to spend the lunch in a bathroom stall. It is not ideal but there's no way those twins are going to leave me alone at lunch. They seem like the type who won't stop doing those things.

While I'm sitting down and messing on my phone, I hear someone come in. I hear steps walking towards my stall.

"I know you're there Stinky Carrot."

Oh, No. It's Natasha. She was, or still is one of the girls that used to bully me before.

"So the Emo Prince and the Hound Bitch didn't come today?"

Those are the nicknames that Joshua and Lydia were given. Joshua is the Emo Prince, because he has a emo hair and is handsome as a prince. Lydia is the Hound Bitch, is from an Elvis Presley song, I think, I don't really know what that nickname means. Mine is the Stinky Carrot, because of my Red hair and my stinky incident.

"Leave me alone," I say to her.

"Don't count on that," she says in return.

"Why not?" I don't know what her problem is with me.

Then I hear her walking around from outside and hear her pick up something. Then I hear the sink being turned on. What is she doing?

Out of nowhere, from a above the stall, Some dirty looking water started to falls from above on my head, wetting my entire body. I look up to see what was that and see that Natasha has filled a trash bag with water. I stand up quickly and exited the stall.

"The Stinky Carrot attacks again." She speaks before she started to laughs at me. Natasha has rich, brown skin, dark brown eyes, and thick, bouncy, curls. She's naturally very slender.

"Why did you do that?!" I say as I turned on the sink to try to wash myself. I can't sense the smell but I know it's bad.

"You think I forgot what that Emo asshole that you follow around like dog did to me." She speaks with a lot of bitterness in her voice.

"What are you talking about?" Did Joshua do something to her?

She then pushes me into a the wall. "As if you don't fucking know!" she yells at me. "Do I look like a moron to you? I know you told him to do that." She grabs my hair and pushes my face against the wall.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" I yelled as she pulls my hair really hard. It hurts.

**Ring,Ring,Ring.**

The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch. She lets go of my hair and walks towards the entrance. "The Stinky Carrot was saved by the bell," she says before walking out of the bathroom.

I... I wanted to cry but... I don't wanna be here anymore. I'm going to cut the last class. There is a broken window here. Lydia was the one who broke it, I used to get out of the school. I walked all the way to my bike, climbed on and the ride away.

* * *

I ride my bicycle to go home, crying all the way. What did Joshua do to her to make her so mad. It doesn't take long for me to get home, I don't see Daddy's car which is a good thing since I really don't want to explain how did I got covered in trash water. I lock my bike on the front yard before walking towards the entrance. I open the door and the first thing I do is take off my clothes and walk towards the back room of the house which is beside the kitchen, where dad leaves the cleaning products and the washing machine. I put my dirty clothes inside of it and turn it on. I'm the one who does the laundry here so dad won't notice. Then I walk upstairs to take a shower. I wash every part of my body, the worst part of not being able to scent any smell is the fact that you don't know if you smell bad or not and if Joshua is really coming here, I really don't wanna smell bad.

After finishing my bath and basically rubbing myself with the sponge until it almost bleeds, I wrap myself in a towel and walk back to my room and put on a pair of gray shorts and a Ravenclaw t-shirt that I have.

**Ding Dong**

The doorbell rings and I quickly leave my room to check. The moment I open the door, it was the person that I was expecting.

Joshua, stands on the other side of the door wearing a black hoodie, light blue jeans and red sneakers. The black hoodie makes his skin look even paler than it already is. He's so handsome.

"Hey, Erika," he greets me with his beautiful smile, showing his perfect white teeth.

"Hi," I greeted him back with a smile as well. But my smile isn't as lovely as his. "Come in," I tell him.

He does it without excitation. "Should I take off my shoes?" he asks me.

He's so polite. "Yes please." He does it, leaving on the side of the door. He's wearing black socks.

"So this is where you live?" he asks while looking around.

"Yes, sorry if it's a little messy."

"No, it's fine."

"You... wanna sit?"

"Sure."

I lead him to the couch that's in the living room. I sit beside him. "Sorry if I'm bothering you by coming here," he apologizes.

"No, I really liked that you visited me." Bother? The only thing that would have bothered me more today was not seeing you. "What... What were you doing? I mean... Why didn't you go to school today?"

"Remember those dead animals we found at that house?"

Unfortunately, but I guess I remembered peeing myself in front of you as well. But I really hope that he forgot about that.

"Yes."

"Well, before we left, I put a camera on there and this morning I saw him going there." Wait what?!

"Camera?" I asked him.

He takes out his phone from his pocket and puts on an image on it. I recognized the house the moment I see it.

"Did you find out who it was?" I asked him.

He then shows me another photography that was there. To my shock, the photo is my neighbor, Travis. He's the pet killer? "That guy is your neighbor right?"

"That's why you took a photo of my house?" He only nods in response.

"Jesus."

"Do you know him well?" he asks me.

"He's been my neighbor since I can remember." I tell him. "He's a..."

"Bully?"

"Yes," I quickly answered. "But, killing small animals."

"Yeah, he was taking another cat there to kill it but he saw the mess we made at the house and decided not to kill it there," he tells me "I tried to get there quickly but he left when I arrived but he didn't kill the cat there, so there is still hope."

"Which cat it was?"

"A white Persian cat."

...

...

...

...

"WHAT?!" I yelled very loudly. "AVA?!" I called for her as loud as I could. "Oh my god! Oh my god!" I stand up from the couch really quickly and run to my room to see if she was there. "AVA?!" I called and looked for her everywhere. "AVA?!"

"Please tell me it wasn't your cat?!" Joshua asks me as he enters gets in the door of my room. He then looks at a photo that I had of me and her there.

"Shit!" He quickly runs towards my window and opens the curtains. "Is there anyone at home?" he asks me while pointing at Travis's house.

"No," I say, to him while shaking. Oh god, What if he kills Ava?

"Then come on, let's see if we can find anything on his room," Joshua says, as he grabbing my hand.

The two of us went We go downstairs quickly and walked through the backdoor of my house to the backyard.

We go to the backdoor of Travis's house and Joshua opens it by picking the lock of the door. We entered and the house is pretty ugly on the inside. It's so... dull, it looks like only one person lives here and the person is mostly not there.

"Jesus, and I though Lydia's house was bad," Joshua says to me as he looks around the house.

"His room is upstairs, come on," I tell him. God please be okay, Ava.

We walked upstairs towards his room. His apartment has a similar structure as mine. Same rooms upstairs. I open the door of his room quickly. Joshua follows right behind me but he covers his nose while he enters.

"UGH! It's stinks in here," he tells me.

"I wouldn't know," I tell him.

"Your condition is both a blessing and a curse, right now... It's definitely a blessing."

I actually chuckle a bit at that. He's so cute.

He entered the room and started to looks around. "Look around and see if you can find a clue."

We basically searched everywhere. From drawers, closet, bed, but we can't find anything. The only place left for us to check is his computer but it had a password.

"Any idea?" Joshua asks me.

"Nope, we're not exactly friends Joshua," I reply to him.

Joshua just stood there stares at the computer for a few seconds, until he types a bunch of random things on the keyboard and pressed enter four times until the password tip appears: . It was written, Four eyes nickname.

"Four eyes?" Joshua says in confusion.

"He calls me that since I started to wear glasses," I tell him, which he makes an angry face in response.

"I think we both know what nickname he's talking about," he tells me.

I approached the computer and write the nickname that I dreaded so much: Stinky Carrot. It works.

"I'm getting a gigantic urge to break every bone in his body right now," Joshua bluntly tells me.

"Can I see?" I asked him. "Yes."

He sat on Travis computer and started to searches on the computer it to see if he can find it. I just stand there beside him, looking at him. As he types on the keyboard, I remembered something.

"What did you do with Natasha?"

"I stole her father's credit card and bought a bunch of woman's things, then hacked into her father's phone and created a false conversation between him and a woman," he tells me while he types on the computer. "Basically, I made it look like that her father was having an affair, and then made sure that her mother found out about it."

I stand there shocked at what I just heard. "Joshua, why would you do something like?" I asked him calmly. He always has an explanation to things.

"Didn't she mocked you when your parents divorced, you told me yourself remember," he tells me while staring at my eyes with his left blue one. "'Of course, they divorced, having a disgusting sack of shit like you as a daughter would make any parents want to stay away,'" he says, imitating Natasha, which unfortunately is very close to her. "So I made her taste what it felt like."

"Joshua... That is so cruel." I can't believe that he did something like that.

"So was she mocking you because of it, I just combat it cruelty with cruelty," he tells me without a bit of regret in his voice. "I would do much worse to anyone who would mess with you."

As much as I still think that he was cruel by doing that, the last part made my heart beat so fast, that I thought I would have a heart attack.

"I think I found something," he tells me as he was searches some of the documents, there was one titled **Worthless pests**.

Joshua clicks on it and there is a bunch of videos on it. He clicks into one and to our horror, it is a video of Travis carving a dog open with a knife and removing his internal organs. It made me sick of what I was watching and I ended up puking onto the ground. Joshua kneels down to help me.

"Erika, cover your eyes and stop watching," Joshua tells me as he holds my hair so I won't dirty it... Again.

"How can you be so calm?" I asked him, because he doesn't look fazed by what we just saw.

"I've seen worse." My eyes widen after he says that. How could he have seen it worse than that.

**Click**

While he was still holding my hair, We both heard a click coming from the front door of the house. Quickly, Joshua grabs one of Travis's T-shirts that were on the floor and puts it on top of where I just vomited. Then He pulls me into the closet with him and closet for us to hide. The two of us We heard steps on the stairs and I ended up holding tightly to Joshua in fear. My heart was beats very fast while Joshua doesn't seem fazed by the situation. Our faces are so close that I can feel the breathing coming from his nose. I wonder, what Joshua smells like.

**Click**

I heard another click, this time it's was this his bedroom door. I try to move my face to see if it is Travis but Joshua puts his hand on my cheek and moves my head to look at him. In that split moment, even as I am afraid because Travis probably has a knife. I moved my hand and do what I've always wanted to do: I removed the the hair that's always covering Joshua's right eye. And... his right eye is green, like an emerald.

So beautiful. His right eye is different but just as beautiful as his left one.

"What the hell?" I heard Travis saying, I finally move my gaze from Joshua's eyes and look at him. Travis notices the vomit that Joshua covered with the shirt. He then stood up from where the vomit was and notices his computer. "Oh no, Oh shit!" he yells in anger as he noticed that someone saw his disgusting secret.

With that, Joshua opens the closet and door and walks out. If I was ever close to having a heart attack, this one was definitely it. I just stay there in the closet watching everything, Joshua walks really slowly towards Travis, who has his back turned.

As soon as he gets close, he kicks Travis in between his legs which were wide open. He then turns Travis around and hits him with his elbow. Travis falls on the ground with his face bleeding a little but he was still awake.

"Ok, you're probably going to be a little stunted after this but I know that you can still hear me," Joshua says to Travis. "I'm gonna ask you three question and if you don't answer, I'm going to hurt you even more," he says with a calm voice. "Make a noise if you understood."

"Ugmhh," Travis grunts.

I come out of the closet soon after that.

"Alright, question number one." He kneels down. "Did you kill Erika's kitten?" That question makes me freeze in fear of the answer.

"Agghh," he just grunts again.

"I'm going to count to five and if you don't answer me, I'll break one of your fingers." Joshua says to him. "One, two, three, four, five." As soon as he gets to number five, he grabs Travis' left hand. "Turn around." He tells me.

I decided to obey him and turned around so I won't see.

**Crack**

Two seconds later, I heard a crack followed by a scream.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH-" I turn around again and see that Joshua put his hand on his mouth before looking away again.

"I still have nine more fingers to break, so answer my question," Joshua says, and his voice is so menacing that it even scares me. "Did you killed Erika's cat?"

"AAAAAAHH! No!" he removed from his hand from his mouth and tells him. The moment he said that, I can't describe how relieved I am.

"Good, question number 2," Joshua says. "Why did you take her Cat."

"I wanted to see her cry," I heard he says. and that It makes me so angry that I could-

...

"Joshua."

"Yes?"

"Can you break another one?"

"For you... yes."

**Crack**

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Travis tries to scream but Joshua covers his mouth again. I don't like hurting people but he wanted to kill Ava just to see me cry. I hate him.

"Question number 3," Joshua asks.

"Where's Ava?" I asked him this time.

He just stays quiet at this time. I just waited for Joshua to snap another one of his fingers. But instead of doing that, he stands up from the ground and walks towards his computer and started to types on the keyboard.

"What are you doing?" he asks Joshua.

He kept typing on the keyboard, and then he entered logs on to a Facebook account. "Your parents seem like nice people, it would be a shame for them to have revelation on what their son is really like."

"No, no, you can't do this." Travis tries to speak but Joshua just puts his foot on his face.

"I can and I am, unless you tell me where you put her cat." Joshua spoke with a lot of calm on his voice.

"Fine, that worthless thing is in the abandoned house at the end of the street." He spoke to us.

Joshua then removes his foot from his face and I quickly run to the door. "Come on Joshua," I called him.

"Just a second." He walks towards the computer. "And... Send."

"WHAT!"

"What? I didn't send it to your parents but I didn't say anything about sending to everyone you have on Facebook. Don't worry at best your mom and dad will send you to a mental hospital." Joshua then approaches him. "Sleep well." Joshua then stomps on his face with his foot, knocking him out cold.

* * *

"Come on, come on, come on," I keep saying as we both run towards the house at the end of the street that Travis talked about.

It was a wooden house that apparently is more than forty years old, and I don't know how it is still standing.

"Calm down, we're almost there," Joshua tells me as we ran to the house.

The moment we arrived at the door, Joshua throws a kick at the door. The door is pure rotten wood which breaks very easily. We both entered the house and I am quick to scream for her. "AVA!" I yelled as loud as I can.

"Meow."

We heard her Meow coming from upstairs. I quickly walked towards the sound.

"Erika wait!" I heard Joshua yell but as soon as he did, I take a step forward and my foot ended up sinks into one of the wooden boards.

"AAAAHHHH!" I yelled in pain as I feel the planks cutting my ankle. Joshua quickly comes to me and removes my foot from the role and see that there is bit of blood. It hurts, I think I broke my ankle. Joshua makes me sit down to check my ankle.

"Don't worry, the cut is superficial, but I think you sprained your ankle," he tells me with a calming voice. "Wait here, I'm going to get your cat and then we'll go back to your house."

He goes upstairs for a few minutes while I sit, there waiting. He's so nice to me. It's strange to think of him as nice after what he did to Travis but... He deserved it, killing my kitten just because he wanted to see me cry. I hate him, I hate him so much.

Soon after Joshua comes back down and to my relief he has Ava with him.

"Ava. Thank god you're OK." He gives her to me and I squeezed her as hard as I can.

* * *

After Joshua gives Ava back to me, he helps me get up and also helps me walk home. He wraps my arm around his neck to helped me walk.

"Ummm..." I need to say it "Joshua..." I have to say something. "Thanks so much."

"I'll do anything for you Erika," he tells me with a smile. Which makes me blush. Then something came into my mind.

I approached his face and give him a peck on the cheek. He just looks at me again and smiles a bit more, before also giving me a kiss on the cheek, which I'm sure made my face become just as red as my hair.

After walking a bit more we arrive at my house. "Oh no." I noticed my father's car at the front.

"That's your father's car?" he asks me. which I just nodded in response. "Come on then."

"Wait, what?" I asked him.

"I wanna meet your dad."

"Why?"

"I know Lydia and Terry's, yours are the only one I don't know."

"Wait!" I try to tell him before he drags me to the front door.

He opens and my dad was right there sitting on the couch.

"Erika, what happened?" he asks me.

"She sprained her ankle." Joshua is quick to tell him.

"What? Get over and sit down." Joshua helps me get to the couch and Dad went to the bathroom, probably to get some bandages.

Dad comes back with the bandages and kneels down to check my foot. "I'm sorry, but I don't think we were introduced." This time he speaks to Joshua.

"I'm Joshua, Joshua Reese," he introduces himself.

"He's my friend," I finally speak.

"Oh, it's good to meet you Joshua." He extends his hand to him. "I'm Edgar Graham." Joshua shakes his hand. "I'm Erika's father."

"It's good to finally meet you sir, you're the only one of all my friends' parents that I haven't met yet." Joshua bluntly tells him.

"Oh really?" he asks as he bandages my foot.

After that I endure really embarrassing talk about why didn't I bring him here before or introduced any of my friends to my dad. My dad is a bit of a goofball and I was kinda of afraid that he would embarrassed me. But honestly, this is going much better than I was expecting it. Joshua and my dad get along quickly. Of course, Joshua gets along with everyone.

"All fixed," he says to me after finishing bandaging my foot. "Try not to walk much sweetie, you sprained your ankle a bit but it wasn't anything severe," he tells me. "How did this happened anyway?"

"Your neighborhood Travis hid her cat at the abandoned house at the end of the street, so we went there to grab her," Joshua tells him. It was a half-truth but it's better than to tell him everything.

"What? Goddammit spoiled brat, I never liked him."

"We, fought and ... I think I ended up knocking him out," Joshua tells my father. But it wasn't really a fight, it was more of Joshua beating him up.

"What?" Dad asks in confusion.

"When we asked him where her cat was, he just laughed at us, so I got mad and pushed him." Joshua then opens his hoodie, lifts his shirt to and to mine and dad's shock there is a bruise there. "Then he punched me here."

"What did you do?"

"I... Grabbed him and used a Judo throw that I know and threw him to the ground." He was invents a story for my dad and I just stand there listening. "I think he fell on his hand because two of his fingers looked broken."

"Oh my god."

"Then he stood up again and charged at me, I ended up hitting him with my elbow." Joshua looks down, looking really guilty. "He fell on the ground cold after that."

Father then looks at me. "Is that true?" he asks me.

I hate lying to my father. But if it's for Joshua.

"Yes, he said that he was going to kill Ava just to see me cry." I decided to tell him that part of the story.

"What?!" Now my father looks really angry. "I'm going to have a talk with that kid's parents." He then stood up and looked at them. "Where is he now?"

"I think he's still knocked out in his room," Joshua tells him.

"Okay, you two wait here, I'm going there to check on him," Father says as he walks towards the door.

Joshua walked towards me and sits beside me. He then holds my hand and whispers in my ear, "Thank you."

I smiled before whispering something in return in his ear. "I'll do anything for you Joshua." I repeated what he told me early.

I'm wondering what's going to happen to Travis.

"Meow." I heard Ava meowing while walking and laying as she lays on Joshua's lap.

Lucky girl.


End file.
